Mississippi Medicine

Based on the rituals of the proto-Mississippian death cult of the 1200s. Native birch tar, viola, & white spruce grounded in incense & cypress root.

Liner Notes & Ingredients

Liner Notes

Mississippi Medicine is based on what little is known about the rituals of a fast growing death cult that emerged in the southern part of the US in the 1200s. Called the South Eastern Ceremonial complex, it is more of a period within the Mississippian culture (the mound builders) when a specific system of religion quickly emerged. Other names for it were The Buzzard Cult and simply The Southern Death Cult (badass).

The cedar tree was sacred to them, representing an axis mundi (a gateway between the lower and upper worlds). Nothing gets me going more than the concept that seemingly mundane places – a cave, a space under a bush, a tiny lake, are gateways to the other world. Ancient peoples' understanding of the world integrated landscape, flora, and fauna into their whole being.

Mississippi Medicine is rich in cedar. Dry red Virginia cedar. Healthy doses of incense help marry the wood to the pine. Incense has been used in rituals since the dawn of time, which means we connect it to religious feeling in the depth of our bones.

The heart of MM is filled out with an accord of wild viola that could have grown by the mounds in Mississippi. Birch tar adds a primal smoke. It smells mysterious and ancient.